Through this supreme reward, the subtle tempter has a hold on the men who care not alone for themselves but for their family: henceforth, the work as he does, eighteen hours a day, stand fire, and say to themselves, while sinking at their desks or facing cannon-ball that their pre-eminence survives them in their posterity: "In any event my son will succeed me and even become greater by my death." All the temptations which serve to overcome the natural lethargy of human matter are simultaneously united and; with the exception of personal conscience and the desire for personal independence, all other internal springs are strained to the utmost.

One unusual circumstance gives to eager ambitions a further increase of energy, impulse and enthusiasm .-- All these successful or parvenu men are contemporaries: all have started alike on the same line and from the same average or low condition in life; each sees old comrades superior to himself on the upper steps; he considers himself as good they are, suffers because he is not on their level, and strives and takes risks so as to mount up to them.

But, however high he mounts, he still sees higher yet others who were formerly his equals; consequently, no rank obtained by them seems to him above his deserts, and no rank that he obtains suffices for his pretensions.
"See that Massena," exclaimed Napoleon,[3350] a few days before the battle of Wagram; "he has honors and fame enough, but he is not satisfied; he wants be a prince like Murat and Bernadotte: he will risk getting shot to-morrow simply to be a prince."-- Above these princes who have only the rank, the title and the money, come the grand-dukes and reigning viceroys like Murat, grand-duke of Berg, and Eugene, viceroy of Italy.

Above Eugene and Murat are the vassal-kings, Louis, Joseph, Jerome, then Murat himself, who, among these, is in a better place, and Bernadotte, the only sovereign that is independent; all more or less envied by the marshals, all more or less rivals of each other, the inferior aspiring to the superior throne, Murat inconsolable at being sent to Naples and not to Spain, and at having only five millions of subjects instead of thirteen millions.
From top to bottom of the hierarchy and even to the loftiest places, comprising thrones, the steps rise regularly above each other in continuous file, so that each leads to the following one, with nothing to hinder the first-comer, provided he is lucky, has good legs and does not fall on the way, from reaching the top of the staircase in twenty or thirty years.

"It was commonly reported in the army--he has been promoted king of Naples, of Holland, of Spain, of Sweden, as formerly was said of the same sort of man, who had been promoted sergeant in this or that company."-- Such is the total and final impression which lingers on in all imaginations; it is in this sense that the people interpret the new Regime, and Napoleon devotes himself to confirming the popular interpretation.